Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-12-08
UNCLE SANS STRONG BOX.
1t Would be SkiIlful Burglar, Indeed, Who
Could Enter it.
Sayahanah News

Savannah News.
l dropped into the treasury yesterday
and looked at the workman, who are en-
gagged ID constructing the new vault. The
treasury Itself looks like tomb. 1t has
great sombre columns down each side of
it, and the doors of its basement are so
cut that they look as though they were
dug out of a solid rock. Everything
about it is massive, and it makes me
think more of the bank of England than
any other building [ have seen. 1t is
made in the shape of hollow square,
with wide tiers of granite walls running
around court in the center. 1t is in
this court that the new vault is being
built. Thick walls of brick and cement
rise within, and the vault will be above
and not below ground.
Its interior will be cut up into cells
walled with iron lattice work, and the
wOrkmen are now rivItlng the iron bars
com posing it together, These bars must
be very strong, as the weight of the silver
which is to be put i'll the vault will be i'm
mense. There was portable furnace
blazing away within the vault o-day, and
four men were carrying red hot rivits and
sticking them through the holes which
had been drilled in these iron bars
They were then riv1ted by the pounding
of heavy hammer while man held an
iron mallet against them at tn. back.
Each of these lattice work walls require
$500 rivlts and it will take more than
100, 900 of these rivits to fasten the iron
work of the vault together.
The vault is to contain $10O,O0O,000,
which is UGH an immense sum that few
people can com prehend 1t. It will give
some idea Cf it to know that its weight
will be $3.50 tons, or the weight of
$4,000 men OF 200 pounds each. Think
of the heaviest man you know, and it
would take 35 900 such men to weigh as
much as does this silver. It would take
l70 freight cars to carry it, and it would
take train a mile and quarter long to
transport it.
It's weight would be SO much that 6
locomotives could hardly haul it, and if
these dollars were laid ont so that one
just touched the other they would mrke a
line 2,305 miles long. If they were put
into floor, edge to edge, they would
carpet ten times the area of the capital,
Or more than thirty acres, and if they
were piled one upon another, they wonld
reach much more than 500 times as high
as the Washington monument, making a
solid column of silver more than 177
miles high. A million dollars in silver
is no small vuantity, and when you pack
$lO0,0OO,O00 into a vault it has to be as
strong as stone and iron can make it.
10 rob this vault will be physical i'm
possibility. To tunnel into it one would
have to go under the whole treasury
building. and he would have to drill
through floor of cement and chilled
steel before he got to the coin. The
slightest noise would be sure to be heard
and the movement of a single bag would
GAUGE such racket as to bring the guard
down on him instantly. No attempt has
l think, ever been made to rob the
United States treasury, and the safe
euardsabout are SO strong, that nons but
the craziest of men would think of try
ing it.